I think it is excellent that the Daily Illini is addressing the problems that LGBTQA youth face in public and private schools in their recent editorial.

However, as a university, we should not simply sit back and hope that the state or high schools will take it upon themselves to solve the problem of the exclusion of an entire class of people from school.

We have hundreds, if not thousands of education majors on our campus and they are being trained to be the teachers and administrators in elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools. We can increase the training that education majors at our university receive on how to work with LGBTQA youth and make all schools a place where identities are affirmed and accepted.

By impacting the training that these students receive now, we can help make sure that each class of graduating education majors is ready to take the challenge of making all of their students comfortable in their schools and ready to learn. We are instructing the future generation of educators, we should start here.